January 30, 2008

Fans make Liverpool takeover move: Liverpool supporters are to launch an ambitious plan to buy the football club from its current American owners and turn it towards the Spanish/German model. "The Champions League has been won on six occasions in the last 15 years by clubs owned and run in such a way," said football business lecturer Rogan Taylor, one of the three prime movers.

This is interesting. It also leads to other... distractions. The elections at FCB and Real Madrid can be as cut throat as anything you see in politics anywhere. Powerplays by factions within the club trying to elect someone president can be quite divisive. While it is a more democratic system, rather than modern democracy it is more along the lines of the Roman Republic where the highest bidder gets the mob's vote. Florentino Perez became President of Real Madrid by offering to steal Figo from FCB a few years ago, remember? Still, I hope that Liverpool goes for it.

Yeah, I'd be worried about how financially committed to the club the Americans are too. I mean, they barely made a splash in the transfer market over the summer, with some minor purchases of Fernando Torres, Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun and Andriy Voronin. 50 million pounds is practically nothing. And, maybe the fans have forgotten one principle. Just cause you have the money, doesn't mean anyone is selling.

Well, to be fair, none of those four have been busts. (None have lit the world on fire neither, but I'm just saying it could be worse.) I like the principle behind this, but I fear the execution of it.

I wish them all the best (so long as they remain a safe distance behind Arsenal in the table). I don't completely understand these kinds of deals. Over time, don't shares trade hands and you eventually end up with a few major players with controlling shares and economic interests eventually displacing club loyalty? Greed (if that's what wanting to make a lot of money by owning a football club is) takes over and you're in much the same place as having one or two owners (witness the power struggles in Arsenal's board room).

All I could think of was (even as a Liverpool fan meself) WTF? I went to their site and got this: "This Account Has Been Suspended Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible. " This is romantic and all but, heck, if they can't run a fooking website, you want them to run an international cooperative for a half-billion-POUND club?

Oh, the 'assets' / 'liabilities' with a picture of the team in the latter column is an old mainstay of fanzines. This is an important move. It could go tits-up, but if it reverses the trend for clubs to become the playthings of foreign multi-millionaires, their ownership built on dubious borrowing models, it sets a precedent to offset the inexorable trend towards the franchise model. The repercussions of 'Yanks Go Home' may even cross the pond and challenge the prohibition of co-operative ownership. Over time, don't shares trade hands...? Not if you have something akin to the sporting-club (or, if you like, the Green Bay Packers) model with restrictions on share ownership, transfer and appreciation.